The place behind the detail.

Ion Perdicaris built the house in 1878 on a hill in the Rmilat forest, overlooking the Strait of Gibraltar. The estate was known as Aidonia, the Place of the Nightingales.

Its architecture combines the English Queen Anne style with classical and medieval elements: steep tiled roofs and gables, with crenellated square and round towers.

In May 1904, Perdicaris and his stepson Cromwell Varley were kidnapped at the house by men led by Mulai Ahmed er Raisuni. The crisis drew American, British and other warships to Tangier and gave the 1904 American presidential campaign a famous line: “Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead”.

Both men were freed in late June 1904 after the Sultan’s government accepted Raisuni’s terms.

• Read about the kidnapping→

In 1930 the estate was sold to Thami El Glaoui, the Pasha of Marrakech, and after independence in 1956 it passed to the Moroccan state. After decades of neglect, renovation began in 2015. In April 2022 the house reopened as a Heritage Interpretation Centre, with Ion Perdicaris and his wife on the ground floor and the biodiversity of the Rmilat forest upstairs.

This history belongs to the place and the people who shaped it. The History page offers a longer introduction, and the timeline gives a short route through selected milestones.

• Read the history of the palace→
• Explore the timeline→